ANNAPOLIS (AP) – Same-sex marriage has been declared a question for the legislature, not the courts – but top Maryland lawmakers doubt any bills on the matter will pass in the upcoming legislative session.

The session that begins Jan. 9 will be the first regular session since the state’s highest court ruled in a Baltimore case that the Maryland constitution’s equal-rights amendment does not make a ban against same-sex unions unconstitutional.

In other words, the judges punted the question back to lawmakers.

“Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex,” Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote in the September decision.

But top lawmakers say it’s unlikely the question of same-sex unions will advance this session.

“Both sides are so passionate about it, nothing will move,” predicted Senate Republican Leader David Brinkley.

House Speaker Michael Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller have said they doubted same-sex marriage or civil union bills will make it to a vote this year.

“Churchgoing people are not really in favor of breaking up traditional marriage,” Miller said Thursday. “I don’t think we see a whole lot of movement in that direction.”

But activists on both sides say it won’t be easy for lawmakers to ignore the question. It’s likely several bills will be proposed, including measures that would grant same-sex marriages, create civil unions or create a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions.

And a House-Senate committee is scheduled to take up a definition of “domestic partner” next week as it approves a health insurance regulation. A new law that took effect Jan. 1 requires insurance companies to offer benefits to domestic partners if companies request it, but the law does not define domestic partners. That definition will need to be approved by lawmakers.

Equality Maryland, a gay rights group, plans to back a bill that would take gender requirements out of state marriage law. The bill would make clear that clergy members are under no obligation to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies.

“Opponents have said we’re trying to make clergy do what they don’t want to do. So we addressed that. This isn’t anything other than equality from the state,” said Carrie Evans, Equality Maryland’s policy director.

Supporters of the marriage bill say they’ll appeal to their colleagues to take up their bill in the interest of fairness.

“From pensions to immigration to visitation in the hospital, there are just a slew of rights related to marriage,” said Delegate Ben Barnes, D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s, who plans to sponsor a marriage equality bill.

Despite signals from legislative leaders that same-sex marriage bills won’t advance, Barnes predicted supporters will push hard to get something done about same-sex marriage this term.

“This bill just seeks to end discrimination while protecting religious institutions,” he said.

On the other side, same-sex marriage opponents plan to push equally hard.

Sen. Andy Harris, R-Harford, plans to propose a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. But he said he didn’t have high hopes any marriage proposals would succeed.

“I doubt we’ll see it on the floor if the Senate President doesn’t want to move it on the floor,” Harris said.

Delegate Victor Ramirez, a Prince George’s Democrat who supports legalizing same-sex unions, said it’s too soon to know whether a same-sex marriage bill of any sort will succeed this term.

“Quite honestly we’re gearing up to see where the consensus is,” Ramirez said. “It’s still to be determined.”

NEW YORK (AP) – “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila” is apparently over for Bobby Banhart.

The 25-year-old male film student Tequila selected last month on her popular MTV reality dating show is no longer – or maybe never was – dating the 26-year-old bisexual Internet celebrity.

During MTV’s live New Year’s Eve programming, Tequila said that Banhart had broken up with her because of her hectic work schedule. “He couldn’t handle it,” she said. “He broke up with me.”

However, Banhart said in a Dec. 30 message posted on MySpace that “she never called me after the last show, and no one would give me her number.”

The network announced Wednesday that a second season of “A Shot at Love” will air this spring and will once again feature Tequila looking for love, reality TV style, among a group of men and women.

“This time I wanna find love for real,” Tequila said during “Tila Tequila’s New Year’s Eve Masquerade 2008.”

Casting notices circulated online for a second season of “A Shot at Love” before the finale, the network’s most-watched broadcast since November 2005.

PHOENIX (AP) – State officials have received a flood of public comments on a proposal by Gov. Janet Napolitano’s administration to provide domestic partner benefits to state government employees and retirees.

Department of Administration officials last week were processing hundreds of e-mails and letters received right before the close of the comment period on Monday, and it appeared that a total of more than 1,000 had been received, spokesperson Alan Ecker said.

A tally made last month on about half of the comments indicated that more were in favor of the changes than against, but no updated breakdown was immediately available, he said.

The domestic partners benefits proposal, which would change state employment rules, awaits consideration by a state commission.

The proposal touches on the sensitive social issue of gay rights and has drawn criticism from some Republican lawmakers and others.

Napolitano’s administration director, William Bell, has said his proposal would help state government recruit and retain good workers. Napolitano and other supporters have called the proposed changes a matter of fairness for the workers involved.

Opponents say the rule changes would undermine marriage and constitute a power grab that bypasses the Legislature’s policy-making role.

The proposal would “treat governmental employees with domestic partners as though they are married,” the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian advocacy group, wrote Monday in an objection. “This proposed policy sends an unequivocal message that the state views the relationships as equal. They are not, and the Legislature has not chosen to treat them as if they were.”

Equality Arizona, a gay rights advocacy group, said Wednesday that it knew of at least 672 comments in support of the proposal. Most were e-mails sent to the state through Equality Arizona but others were letters sent directly to the state, the group said.

One such letter was sent by University of Arizona president Robert Shelton.

“This forward step by the state will allow us to better fulfill our mission and live up to our ideals of acceptance and nondiscrimination for all who choose to be a part of the University of Arizona community,” Shelton wrote in a Dec. 19 letter.

Ecker said department officials will review the comments and summarize them and the department’s responses in a report to be submitted to the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council.

Because of the need to process the many comments, it likely will be March at the earliest before the council considers the proposal, Ecker said.

The department may hold a separate public hearing before then to take additional comments on the proposal if such a proceeding has been requested, Ecker said.

MADISON (AP) – Former Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus, who signed the nation’s first statewide gay rights law in 1982, has died. He was 81.

Dreyfus died Wednesday at his Waukesha home while watching television, son Lee S. Dreyfus Jr. said Thursday. He had suffered from heart and breathing problems, according to a family spokesperson.

Dreyfus was a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty and chancellor at UW-Stevens Point before he resigned to run for governor. He was elected in 1978, defeating acting Gov. Martin Schreiber in the general election.

The gay rights measure Dreyfus signed made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in housing, employment and public accommodations. Activists gathered in Madison last year to mark the 25th anniversary of the law.

Dreyfus also was a vocal opponent of the state’s ban on gay marriage and civil unions, which was approved by voters in 2006.

Serving through 1982, Dreyfus earned respect for his businesslike approach to politics.

“He wasn’t interested in the political maneuvering,” said Tom Loftus, who served as the Democratic majority leader in the Assembly during the Republican Dreyfus’ term. “He would propose something, and whatever the Legislature came up with, he would work with that.”

Dreyfus once said the Legislature controlled by the rival party “forces you to think in terms of compromise. You don’t have an option. Your only power is to stop things with the veto.”

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle said he benefited from Dreyfus’ advice over the years and that the former governor showed that politics do not have to be harsh or overly partisan.

The state’s 40th governor may be remembered for his tax cuts, which he instituted in response to a more than $3 billion budget surplus, said Ken Lindner, a former UW-LaCrosse chancellor who was Dreyfus’ Department of Administration secretary.

The cuts included a state tax moratorium for two months in 1979. But he was criticized for the move after a recession hit in the early 1980s. The administration had to cut the next budget by 4.4 percent.

Dreyfus was born in Milwaukee and earned his undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees at UW-Madison. He served in the Navy during World War II.

In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife, Joyce, his daughter, Susan Fosdick, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.